TRI-COUNTY — Texas is privatizing its testing efforts as the Texas Division of Emergency Management delegates the task of taking and processing tests to private companies. It mirrors the approach Texas has taken with contact tracing, where a subcontractor in May won a $295 million contract to help those efforts.
The National Guard has been running mobile testing sites since April and needed a break, said Seth Christensen, a TDEM spokesperson. And with hurricane season here and at least three storms now brewing in the Gulf of Mexico, they were also needed back in their communities.
“The National Guard has been out there, doing a tremendous job,” Christensen said. “Moving towards the private sector will hopefully make [the process] more efficient.”
Texas’ privatized testing push started as early as May and has recently sped up. Curative Inc., the company that previously helped set up an online testing portal for Texas tests, has been running oral-swab tests in prisons, The Texas Tribune reported, and possibly also in other places. In an email Monday, a company spokesperson said Curative was “running software at 21 facilities” but declined to offer more details, instead deferring to TDEM.
In West Texas, the most obvious change will be the mobile testing sites. In place of the National Guard, the sites will now be staffed by employees and/or subcontractors of a Washington State-based company called Honu Management Group.
Texas is currently paying the company around $97 for each test it runs, Christensen said. TDEM will also put out requests for proposals for bigger testing initiatives for private companies to bid, though the details of those are not yet public.
Honu ran its first tri-county testing site in Alpine on Saturday, followed by two more in Marfa on Sunday and Monday. And so far, local officials have been mostly happy with the results.
Testing in Alpine on Saturday was “really smooth,” said Stephanie Elmore, emergency management coordinator for Brewster County. More than 150 people got tested in a single day, she said.
“Pretty smooth,” agreed Gary Mitschke, emergency management coordinator for Presidio County. But he added that Marfa turnout numbers were “a little disappointing,” with just around 90 people tested on Sunday.
On Monday, this reporter went to get tested. The process took about 15 minutes and involved filling out a pre-registration form on-site.
Christensen, the TDEM spokesperson, said Honu was aiming for a test turnaround of around 48 to 72 hours and usually had results within 96. At press time around 55 hours later, test results were still pending.
Despite the praises from local officials, Honu testing got off to a bumpy start. When the company first started taking over mobile testing sites on Thursday in El Paso, there was “a hiccup in terms of how they were going to transition,” said Laura Cruz-Acosta, a city spokesperson in El Paso. She said she believed Honu needed more time to train contractors, citing conversations with health officials.
Those problems continued in the tri-county — where on Friday, a scheduled testing date in Alpine got called off.
“They weren’t prepared,” said Elmore, the Brewster County emergency management coordinator. But she stressed that testing went well after the company got situated on Saturday.
And for a company that could soon become a household name in parts of Texas, Honu’s public presence is still strikingly barebones. Reached for comment on Monday, its main number offered no way to contact the company’s main office, with a computerized voice stressing that “pressing zero is not an option.”
On its website, Honu describes itself as a “healthcare entity” that specializes in “ancillary revenue and management services.” But a link for information on coronavirus test sites was broken, returning an online 404 error rather than another webpage.
In a lengthy email to The Big Bend Sentinel, Devin Thornton, the CEO of Honu, outlined the company’s work for the state, including “providing on-site staffing,” offering “telehealth services post-testing” and an ability to communicate with patients in more than 20 languages. Christensen, the TDEM spokesperson, acknowledged there “might have been some initial bumps” as Honu got started but deferred to the company for more details.
In a follow-up email, Thorton said that as El Paso became a hotspot, there was an “unexpected increase in testing needs,” which contributed to delays there on Thursday. He also cited issues with “traffic flow, safety and equipment set-up.”
As Honu sets up shop in the region, the real test of its abilities will come in test results. The state has sometimes struggled to quickly return results, especially in rural regions, and there’s often been variations in turnaround times for different patients, even for the same testing site. But whereas Texas had been contracted with a variety of labs through its military testing sites, Honu will also handle lab processing, according to TDEM.
On that front, at least, Honu does appear to be batting above average. After testing in Alpine on Saturday, residents on Monday evening started getting results, Elmore said.
At press time, Elmore wasn’t sure how many tests Honu had so far processed — but she stressed that the average turnaround so far seemed faster than the National Guard-run sites, in which contracted labs had a waiting time of five to seven days and sometimes left residents waiting 10 or more, she said.
Going forward with Honu, local officials will still go through the same process to set up new testing sites, said Christensen, the TDEM spokesperson. TDEM is organizing the sites, while Honu will work something like an event planner, he said.
“Our partnership with local officials is key,” he said, adding that TDEM will work with local officials to determine where there is a testing need while also making sure that “resources aren’t sitting out there, not being utilized.” So if tri-county residents want testing sites to continue, they had better keep utilizing them. In other words, as Presidio County Emergency Management Coordinator Gary Mitschke put it, testing sites will keep coming, so long as “TDEM’s not discouraged with the numbers.”
“I don’t really care who does it,” Mitschke said of which precise entities were handling testing sites. “As long as we get tested, tests come in, we get results and it works — that’s my concern.”